Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure the independence of the PAS9980 framework for fire risk assessment in cases where a developer owns or holds a stake in a company that assesses and signs off on remediation work completed by that developer.

Following a pledge made by major developers last year, 46 developers (as of 18 April 2023) have now signed a contract committing to take responsibility for all necessary work to address life-critical fire-safety defects arising from design and construction of buildings 11 metres and over in height that they developed or refurbished over the last 30 years in England

The developer remediation contract requires that assessments (prior to works being undertaken) and qualifying assessments (to be submitted after works are completed) are carried out by a 'suitably experienced, qualified, independent and competent' fire risk assessor or external wall assessor. The department will have the right to audit those assessments, including (among other things) the right to check whether the assessor meets those criteria. If those assessments or the works themselves fail to meet the requirements set out in the contract, then the developer will be contractually obliged to go back and put things right.